I’ve had a wonderful Christmas with June. I spent time in The Woodlands before I met up with her in Nacogdoches for her family’s Christmas Eve gathering. We got back in time to attend a megachurch Christmas Eve service (as has become my family’s tongue-in-cheek rote). I forgot to mention the joy of June and I’s gift exchange. I gave June her camera and accessories, and it was so exciting to watch her unwrap the accessories one by one before I let her open the camera. I, for my part, received a very handsome watch, shirt, knit tie, some fine tobacco, and a magic trick. 

Christmas with June’s family was a delight as I got to see her younger cousins and particularly June’s very little sister. On Christmas day, we went to the hospital to visit my grandmother who has been there for around two weeks since she had a stroke. All of my mom’s family gathered into the warm hospital room for a breakfast (which June and I found altogether unappetizing on account of hospital germs) and then we all made an exit as my grandmother drifted into sleep. That evening, my family had dinner at the Goose’s Acre after a Christmas Day visit to the movie theater for Marley & Me. The movie was surprisingly sad and complex–not exactly the Christmas + dog + Owen Wilson + post-nude-ish Jennifer Aniston = funny sort of formula I expected from the trailer I saw.

Day after Christmas there was some shopping wherein June and I bought deeply discounted ornaments at Macy’s. June picked up some clothes at Banana Republic while I surreptitiously purchased here an Owl brooch. We ran into our friends, the Carlyles, who were finishing up at the Oil & Vinegar store.

Beyond that, here we are few days later. My family has played serious games of Chickenfoot. June, my sister and I went to look at Christmas lights. We went to a new upscale grocery store called Hubbell & Hudson in the Market Street area of The Woodlands. My sister, June and I made very nice dinners from groceries purchased both at Hubbell & Hudson and HEB Central Market. My sister made an inquiry as to dog food at Hubbell & Hudson, which was treated quite seriously by a staff member who said he would “work on completing the experience.”

Yesterday, church was actually quite good. My pastor did an excellent job of handling the surety of salvation question. He made it very simple and reassuring, which I know is quite difficult to do as someone who has grappled with the question both theologically and emotionally.

Chickenfoot and good dinners pretty much sums it all up. June and I have our work cut out for us. I still need to finish this article (which I’ll describe later). Let’s hope I have access to a Bluebook, else I have to use the online version.

So, June and I ran into a Starbucks “Corporate Policy” today.

It’s called the “we don’t allow photography in our stores policy.” As a one-time employee of the company, I had never heard of any such policy. I’m sure that people took pictures at the store that I worked at, and I never had to scold them–nor was I instructed to do so.

However, this morning in the exact same spot in which I sit for this post, we were informed that June must not utilize her shiny new camera because Starbucks Corporate Policy forbids such things. So, I was prompted to scour the web for any such evidence of a policy.

I found a few things related to unhappy would-be customers faced with similar rude (perhaps well-meaning) employees spouting off a policy of which existence no one seems to be confident. Prof. Lessig has a brief post and Brand Autopsy has a more recent account and also details a similar Whole Foods Policy.

I’m all about corporations being free to set policy, even if I find it to be arbitrary and capricious. My invisible hand will either be glad to discretely make snapshots if I want to enjoy coffee, or else brazenly display my camera. This “policy” is just dumb. The arguments to prevent competitors, to prevent criminal activity, or even concerns about publishing just don’t line up. Most people taking in-store snapshots are utilizing their cameras for the same reason almost everyone has one, which is to memorialize an experience whether good or bad. 99 percent of that is going to be noncommercial use, and the commercial use can be prevented via other means instead of insulting and embarrassing customers. 

One thing that isn’t even being said is the concern for privacy of the corporation’s other customers. This I find persuasive, but the policy can be more finely-tailored to kindly directing customers to only take pictures of themselves and their confidants and inanimate objects. Employees may be photographed at their discretion, and so may other customers likewise give consent to be photographed. This sounds like common courtesy to me wrapped up into a nice batch of policy.

So, Starbucks, with this I respectfully dissent.

Also, the irony is just too much. There is a project (RED) sign that invites one to snap a photo in front of it. It’s on display in most Starbucks locations as it has been since around Thanksgiving. I guess that policy already has an “exception” carved out of it for a massive PR campaign. 

Oh, and I’ll let you guess where those pictures were taken.

I had the opportunity the morning of Thanksgiving to watch several thousand people run. I was there to see my sister finish five miles, which she did readily. I participated in this particular running event for a few consecutive years, though it has been many years that I last participated. I realized in my observation of people running on this somewhat humid morning that I have skipped over what once was a very active, very predominant part of my life. 

When I quit something many years back to choose a greater love over it, I did not anticipate never coming back to that lesser love. Now, many years later, I am turning to an outward expression of my desire to be a runner again. Two friends of mine come to mind as runners who have professional lives very unrelated to running, yet they still run habitually. I admire that immensely, and I aim to achieve that myself. 

A recent motivating factor I should mention is that the morning of the Thanksgiving race, I saw my high school cross country coach (who I believe is now retired). I told him “Hello,” but I do not believe he remembered me other than as a generic old runner of his. He said that I looked good, which I thought was a strange thing to hear given that I have lived a very sedentary life over the past six years since I was on the team. This is because my body is a far cry from the finely-tuned runner’s body I had back then (I say this without resenting my current build).

To have such control over one’s body is not just a matter of physical well-being; it is something naturally compelling. It is well to clock miles on running shoes in the morning and in the evening. I truly do love running with a group, and I think that may be one thing keeping me from running in the out of doors. I won’t chalk it all up to that because I know that a majority of my extended sabbatical from running is in fact sloth.

In recent days, I have had the opportunity to be introspective with the help of others. It owes much to being interviewed, to being asked questions about oneself that just don’t occur naturally. Many of those stray thoughts can be distilled to one principle that a wise professor at DBU no doubt still tells inquiring minds: Focus on the smaller composite parts of things. Aim to do well and completely those small things–one at a time. 

I think that is a better picture than the business-like term “specialization.” I enjoy the idea of focus because it connotes the application of both time and effort. That’s where I come back to running. When running, you focus on one thing, which is to run. There are many factors that are tossed into the mix, but the basic foundation remains: focus on running. The mindset of a runner is very simple, and it remains the same at mile one or the final lap. The finish line is not even a ready picture until it is just in sight. 

And, there is nothing laborious about that idea. There is no use in resenting the way ahead of you, since it is a necessary and proper portion of the race you have set out to accomplish. I will focus on the loves of my life and on being someone proud of his work and labor. I will meditate on improvement because there is no promise in stagnation.

I look forward to contemplating this and more in the season of Advent. The Christ-child is born into this world, and that is both a fulfillment of a promise and promise in itself. That is a continuing truth that I hope continues to change me, to save me from my own forces of stagnation.

Legal writing is a beast unlike any other. It forces a person like myself, who generally follows only the pattern of my mind’s flow and the spontaneous interaction with words that find themselves grasped and thrust upon the page, to box thoughts into carefully stacked syllogisms.

I’ve gotten better with my organization of thoughts, and of folding issues into one another, but I just do not have the intuition that I think is necessary to really excel in legal writing.

I much prefer an ordering of things in disorder, which is why I take music theory only so far in my appreciation of music, why I only look to meter sparingly in verse. I desire the innate, natural rhythm of my voice and in a tone that I find subjectively beautiful. I play with melodies that resonate to me. 

Professors call this imprecision, which I think the irony in utilizing large labels as such is self-evident. Sure, I skip important steps in the puzzle–I’m a student of the law after all. There comes a point, though, when writing has been modulated so much by form that it no longer is my voice at all.

Having entertained the idea, I do hope my professional writing skills continue to be polished–just not at the expense of what I love about personal writing. If anything, I hope a sharper understanding of legal writing enlightens all my other writing with something a little more mature and insightful.

Dear E-Mail Sovereign:

Please do away with the red (sometimes black, still obnoxious) exclamation point that sits beside purportedly extra important e-mails in my inbox. Career Services has abused this function so much that I don’t even know what is important anymore. Also, anytime anything is lost throughout the law school (and nearby roads, according to one e-mail), this troublesome exclamation point reveals itself.

As a general rule, it makes me nervous. I don’t mean ill to people that have opposing standards as to what merits the urgency of the exclamation point. I merely hope to relieve myself of some unnecessary anxiety, which is proximately magnified by the presence of a red exclamation point. This character (in every sense of the word) instructs me and nags me that I absolutely must read another e-mail that has a high percentage chance of being no more important than any other e-mail lingering in my mailbox sans exclamation point. I appreciate your concern.

Sincerely, 

Clark

So, I am back to it. There are already a lot of things to juggle in this bustling fall quarter. I can feel myself assuredly adapting to the idea of this being a constant, though. 

I had a wonderful break, which I might elaborate upon tomorrow (otherwise never). So much comes to mind that I fear listing all of those ideas right now would suck me into a full-blown post. I’ll spare that for this very reason. 

Every young comrade I talk to is facing/has faced the realization of the laboring years. It’s scary, but the sort of scary that provides well-needed pressure to stimulate a creative thinking about calling and work and identity thrown all in the misty midst of that.

Laughter is my tonic, my cure from self. Taking myself too seriously breeds stress and resentment. Not taking myself seriously enough spawns unease and purposelessness. 

It is my hope to return to this tomorrow.

I realized during this morning’s homily that the sources of most of my frustrations that have spun me into an intense, selfish consciousness are all material things. That’s the one common thread. Things break, things malfunction and I well up in frustration like a 4-year-old who dropped his delicious ice cream cone.

This is not to say that were I to eliminate the materialism of life (which is an almost certain impossibility) that I would be free from such tantrums. I know in my heart of hearts that my will would find a way back into the selfish absorption. 

The cars we drive fall apart and need constant maintenance, alerting us to our haphazard reliance on imperfect technologies. The computers we utilize for manifold transactions and communications all become aged, forcing us to upgrade lest we be left behind. They are imperfect because they are our creations, the works of our hands, which by their nature must be flawed because their creators are. We try to recreate, and it can be a most beautiful endeavor.

Yet Technology and our utilities are never amoral because they are the source of constant deceit, lending ourselves to self-exaltation. My frustrations about the malfunction of life are quite possibly unrivaled in clarity. When the machines break down and when I realize how increasingly helpless and reliant I am even when Technology pushes forward in the name of Self-reliance and Individual, I shudder at my own condition.

I realize this is a battle without bounds, without time as far as I will know it. There is nothing disgusting about the materiality of life. Beauty unbounds where life cracks at its geometrical planes and vertices. Where our conventions are torn asunder the essence of living greets us with the steady, constructive destruction likened to waves of magma burning, then cooling, to new earth.

So us 2Qs who have really been building a not-so-positive reputation in the BLS community as of late are winding down the summer quarter. It has been nothing like I imagined it would. We’ve been told that we’re not hard workers–that we’re likable, but we just don’t do the work. This may come as a blow to some, but I think I understand what some professors and some upper quarters are saying.

I can tell that we’ve changed the dynamic (and so has the quarter below us) for better and for worse, but part of that perception may be that all of the law school is into summer, though we ourselves are still presented with more work than we’ve ever seen. I really enjoy my colleagues, and BLS would not be the type of place I would want to stay if I couldn’t “waste time” and put off work with similarly situated persons. I enjoy studying the law, but it is not my life. The law is a vessel for me to pursue a passion that I had before I came to law school. Sure, I will be practicing the law. However, I don’t thirst for the competition that this environment breeds.

I love the satisfaction of work long to achieve and the type of people with whom I get to be co-sufferers, co-gripers, co-planners,  and co-celebrators.  I’m not writing my personal success in law school off, but I shudder at the constant comparison of my work’s product against his or hers. This is my very personal endeavor for which I will be kicked in the ass several times along the way. In the end, though, I have to remember that my goal in law school is something other than that which might be supplied by default in this environment.

Regular attendance at church helps me mentally and spiritually realign myself to my own goals and needs as a human being. I am not a work drone. I have other obligations, hopes, dreams, and desires besides law school. And, in this, I have found the beginning of my adult life. Love my work, but don’t let it consume me. Love my friends, family, and significant other, and don’t neglect them. Harbor hopes, and don’t let them be stolen away by bleak comparisons. Recognize needs, and submit them in view of the Sacraments. 

There are seven more battles that lie in wait. I have surpassed two without mortal wounds. Thanks be to God.

A few things, all of which are variations on the law school theme.

For LARC (our legal writing class for the non-BLS people), we have to write an opinion letter, notifying a client of potential liability in a libel action. It’s interesting, but it has been a very insurmountable task. I’m approaching the day that I have set for a deadline, which is tomorrow by midnight.

Up next is the gloom of new law school exams. Monday is the Crim Law final. I really have no comments on that.

My father’s birthday is tomorrow and my mother’s birthday is next week–as well as their anniversary. Unfortunately, I will be unavailable for all of those.

Our former apartment management company has ignored our demand letter for the portion of the security deposit that they retained. Looks like JP court is in the works. Tomorrow is the deadline for them to refund without any questions. I still need to find out about filing fees and whatnot, but I was hoping they might take us seriously.

I’ve still been enjoying myself here and there. This past weekend for fourth of July, I went to Nutty Brown Cafe to see Bob Schneider. I was reminded how lucky I was to have such great roommates, each with his own amusing flaws (not to exclude myself, of course) and with his very admirable qualities. 

Without my friends and family, this really would be a very fruitless endeavor. I know I would give up. This quarter I’m reminded that I’m not doing this just because I can or because I get some sort of intellectual ego stroke. I am in law school at BLS in particular for a number of reasons, both beyond and within my locus of control.

Today is Clark Debonair’s birthday. Happy birthday to me, who has the pleasure of witnessing for PC Big Trial later this afternoon. I really think today is going to be a good day. My sister and mom came into town this morning and law school people have been wishing me a happy day since I got here. It’s great.

Also, June was the first one to wish me a happy birthday–and I think there’s a surprise coming. Hmm.